(Laos). Its forests have been home to about 40 threatened spe-cies, including one of the last tiger populations in Indochina. The forests, like their inhabitants, urgently need protection.

Preserving BiodiversityThe Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Lao PDR and the local Nam Et Phou Louey management unit joined forces in the Lao–German Climate Protection through Avoided Deforesta-tion (CliPAD) project. They wanted to develop the protected area as a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) project for the voluntary carbon market. REDD works to establish economic incentives via carbon credits, making the forests worth more standing than the land would be if cleared or burned.

Image AnaysisTo identify the location and rate of deforestation, WCS collected Landsat imagery for the protected area for the years 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2010. They also obtained Trimble eCognition software, an advanced image analysis solution for geospatial applications. The software enables users to integrate and analyze geospatial data for quantifying features and detecting changes over time. WCS used eCognition to segment and clas-sify images into forested and non-forested areas.

“The tools provided by Planet Action were invaluable,” said Colin Moore, regional advisor on REDD and climate change on behalf of WCS in Laos. “Manually classifying 600,000 hectares of heterogenous forests, for four time periods, would not have been possible within the project’s timeframe.”

Changing Tack For A Broader Approach With Larger ImpactBased on the data, the WCS team discovered that deforesta-tion rates in the protected area were too low to sustain a REDD project. So a different approach was needed.

With CliPAD and the government of Laos, WCS designed a new project encompassing the entire province, not just the pro-tected area. This new project focuses on developing suitable pilot models for effective provincial forest conservation, which could ultimately extend nationally.

Trimble eCognition is again being used to track deforestation across this massive area, and it will remain an essential tool for projects and governments as they move ahead with future REDD endeavours.